The Top 10 Medical Advances of the Decade

Dec. 17, 2009

Page 3 of 7

"Now I can be on rounds and in five minutes have more information on the topic than I need," Messner said. "On my iPod Touch, I can look up a medication, check the formulary to see if it's covered, check for interactions with a patient's other meds and double check details of the pharmacology of the med, plus quickly review the problem I am treating. And I don't even have to go online."

Information technology also, to some degree, has made life safer for the patient. Once admitted to a hospital, they get a bar code that matches their blood samples and their IVs.

"The ways in which computer systems are improving hospital care ... is pervasive and radical," said Dr. Margaret Humphreys, editor of the Journal of the History of Medicine.

But many physicians have been reluctant to go digital because there is a significant upfront investment, which is why several of the health care reform measures now before Congress include provisions to underwrite some of this cost.

3. Anti-Smoking Laws and Campaigns Reduce Public Smoking

There is no national smoking ban in the United States. However, 27 states and the District of Columbia have enacted restrictions, including seven states that banned smoking in bars and casinos in recent years.

In a report issued last October, the Institute of Medicine said those public smoking bans have cut exposure to secondhand smoke, which, in turn, has contributed to a reduction in heart attacks and death from heart disease.

Dr. Lynn Goldman of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, who chaired the committee that wrote the Institute's report, said the debate was over and that, "Smoking bans work."

Experts on the history of medicine agreed.

In the United States, "anti-smoking campaigns, including banning of smoking in workplaces and public places [has] enormous impact across socio-economic classes on many diseases," said Humphreys of the Journal of the History of Medicine, who added that smoking increases the risk for strokes and many cancers.

"In terms of the greatest good for the greatest number, there can be no doubt that the decline in smoking has had the greatest impact," Humphreys added. "Virginia and North Carolina are just getting around to banning cigarettes in all restaurants now, so the public bans do track over the last 10 years."

While public smoking bans protect people from secondhand smoke, doctors said they also motivate people to quit.

"It's probably the most important 'doable' public health measure for decreasing morbidity and mortality," said Dr. Richard Kahn of Tenants Harbor, Maine. "There is good data that as it becomes more difficult for people to smoke, more will quit."

4. Heart Disease Deaths Drop by 40 Percent

A mere 25 years ago, when a patient came to a hospital with a heart attack, the best that could be done was to put the patient in a darkened room, give him or her morphine for pain and lidocaine, which doctors believed would prevent dangerous irregular heartbeats, and hope for the best.